The advent of computers, interactive electronic communication, the Internet, and other advances in the digital realm of consumer electronics have resulted in a great variety of display options for users of electronic devices such as personal computers, televisions, and digital projector systems. For example, various electronic images may be displayed by personal computer screens, television screens, projector screens, and other electronic display devices that are driven by a video signal source. An exemplary video signal source is a video graphics card.
It is often desirable for a single display device to be able to display an image in different display positions, sizes, and resolutions. Accordingly, the display device has to be capable of receiving and processing a variety of different video signals comprising video data corresponding to an image to be displayed. However, conventional video signal sources are not configured to include control data in a video signal specifying a particular frequency of the video signal, phase of the video signal, resolution of the image to be displayed, or other characteristic that corresponds to the video signal. Likewise, conventional display devices are not configured to process and decode such control data.
Consequently, display devices currently depend on the existence of characteristic data included in the video data itself to determine the display characteristics of a particular image that is to be displayed. The absence of control data in a video signal specific to the particular video signal often results in the misinterpretation of video data and degradation of video quality.